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Preschoolers' extension of novel words to animals and artifacts*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2009

SUSAN A. GRAHAM ,
ANDREA N. WELDER ,
BEVERLEY A. MERRIFIELD  and
JARED M. J. BERMAN
SUSAN A. GRAHAM*
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
ANDREA N. WELDER
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
BEVERLEY A. MERRIFIELD
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
JARED M. J. BERMAN
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
*
Address for correspondence: S. A. Graham, Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4Canada. fax: 403-282-8249. e-mail: grahams@ucalgary.ca
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Abstract

We examined whether preschoolers' ontological knowledge would influence lexical extension. In Experiment 1, four-year-olds were presented with a novel label for either an object with eyes described as an animal, or the same object without eyes described as a tool. In the animal condition, children extended the label to similar-shaped objects, whereas in the tool condition, children extended the label to similar-function objects. In Experiment 2, when four-year-olds were presented with objects with eyes described as tools, they extended the label on the basis of shared function. These experiments suggest that preschoolers' conceptual knowledge guides their lexical extension.

Type
Brief Research Report
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , September 2010 , pp. 913 - 927
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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Footnotes

[*]

This research was supported by funding from NSERC of Canada, the University of Calgary and the Canada Research Chairs program awarded to the first author. We thank the parents, children and adults who participated in the studies as well as the staff at participating preschools and daycares in the Calgary area. Jennifer Storms, Tamara Demke and Cari Kilbreath provided us with assistance with this research. We thank Amy Booth, Diane Poulin-Dubois, Geoffrey Hall and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on a previous version of this manuscript. Some of these data were presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science, Ottawa, June, 1998 and at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Albuquerque, NM, April, 1999.

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